Sunday, June 22, 2008

Name Games

my recent experiences in getting some certificates - including a correction on my daughter's passport led me to seriously think of how seriously people take the names of others..right from school days, when i used to be an active short wave listener and had many pen friends across the globe, i would receive mails addressed to me with different spellings. when someone hears my name and address, they spell it the way they think is right.. including one addressed to c.bangu and a partial address.somehow it reached me and the postman said that any mail received at that post office, which they could not figure out, he would check with me - as i used to receive a lof ot foreign mails...for some reason, my name has been a favourite with many to spell it the way they chose to.i have been called Siva, Shiv, Shiva, Guru, Siv, 'viz' etc etc etci always used to tell people that they can call me anything as long as they do not call me names.

in running around to get some papers organized for my daughter's visa, i realized that the project to correct the names and synchronize them will be a major effort.the names are spelt the way the clerk in an office chooses - so i have different spellings for the name as it appears in some bank accounts [it was ok when the account was opened, but changed when an additional passbook was issued], property documents, PAN cards. voter ID card, airline frequent flyer cards etc etc etc.is there any service that would detect these anomalies and get it all sorted out quickly?